As we know that Government of India have made the 12 digit mandatory with many other important official documents. One of those is bank accounts and the deadline to do the same has been set which is 31st December 2017. And the accounts which won’t be linked with bank accounts by this date would be “cease to be operational”.
RBI (Reserve Bank of India) issued a clarification today i.e. October 21, stating that seeding of Aadhaar with bank accounts is mandatory under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (Maintenance of Records) Second Amendment Rules.
A notification was out on June 1st 2017 by the Ministry of Finance, amended the Prevention of Money – Laundering (Maintenance of Records) Rules, 2005, which states that the new bank accounts which were opened after this notification are required to link their new bank accounts with Aadhaar card at the time of opening of the account or within 6 months of opening account. And the bank accounts which already exist are supposed to fulfil the linkage procedure by the given deadline i.e. 31st December, 2017.
To which Director, People Advisory Services Ernst and Young says “It is important to note that these rules apply to all individuals, companies, firms, trust, associations, etc who have a bank account. For companies, firms trust and associations, the individual authorised to transact on its behalf is required to link his / her Aadhaar with the respective bank account. Exemption is only available if the individual is not eligible for Aadhaar i.e. a non resident as per Aadhaar rules”.
Full Text of RBI Notification
These Rules have statutory force and, as such, banks have to implement them without awaiting further instructions.
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However, exceptions have been given to some of the account types i.e. in case the small account types which are not linked with 12 digit Aadhaar number will be kept out of making it unoperational and also they are mandatory to link with Aadhaar even at the time of opening.
A small account is a bank savings account where:
- The aggregate of all credits in a financial year does not exceed Rs 1 lakh.
- The aggregate of all withdrawals and transfers in a month does not exceed Rs 10, 000.
- The balance at any point of time does not exceed Rs 50, 000”.